Valerie suppressed a wide laugh and looked out over the railing at the guests mingling in the entrance hall below, hoping to catch sight of at least one of Their Excellencies. Last night, it’d been two hours before she’d spied Christian, and then it’d been off to dance before they’d had a chance to talk. Valerie had enjoyed the company of Mr. R. M. Chaplin, a lanky young man with more chin than some but far less than most and an obsession with horses.
Now she didn’t see any of her friends in the sea of debutantes in their pastel gowns and simple pearl necklaces that paled beside the older women’s ostentatious diamonds. Pearls were the only jewelry besides a touch of gold here and there that debutantes were permitted to wear. It was one of the many rules that governed the debutantes’ Season and a great deal less tedious than the strict adherence to writing thank-you notes to every hostess, wearing very little makeup, not going to nightclubs, and never riding alone with a gentleman in a taxi. Not that Valerie had been alone at any event since the tea. Their Excellencies had held up their end of the pact over the last few nights of debutante dances. Valerie had yet to stand out by herself when at least one of them was around, and she’d done the same for them. Thank heaven. Without them, she’d be as alone as the girls Lady Clancarty was hired to bring out. Valerie had overheard more than one mother comment on the pointlessness of making friends with a nobody who’d disappear the moment the Season ended.
Speaking of commenters. She locked eyes with Vivien, who stood with Rosalind and Priscilla near a heavy bronze statue of some ancient Roman. Vivien sucked on a cigarette, the end of it burning as hot as her eyes. In a smoky breath, she said something to her friends, who turned to stare Valerie down, but she didn’t flinch. She held the high ground and she used it to rain as much venom on them as they flung at her. How typical. Dinah’s cousins and friends had yet to turn up for a dance, but Vivien and her lot were at every event.
Vivien stubbed out her cigarette on the foot of the bronze Roman statue on the pedestal beside her.
“Mr. Baxter, fetch that young lady an ashtray.” Lady Dunsford’s voice with its garbled American and English accents rang out from the top of the stairs. “She’s there by Caesar.”
The entire entrance hall and receiving line followed the line of Lady Dunsford’s raised finger to Vivien, who turned as pale as her satin dress.
She swept the cigarette butt and ash off the bronze and deposited it in the footman’s silver ashtray. She glared at Valerie as if it were her fault she’d been caught being rude, then trounced off with Rosalind. Priscilla lagged behind, shrugging helplessly at Valerie before following her friends.
“I don’t know what’s come over young girls these days,” Lady Dunsford exclaimed to Lady Boyle and her daughter as they approached for their introduction, moving Valerie and Aunt Anne to the front of the receiving line.
Lady Dunsford greeted her guests with effusive gestures that made the line of blue ribbons on the front of her Edwardian-style gown bounce against the silk. Her daughter Guinevere stood beside her, the deb’s demure graciousness a stark contrast to the black velvet evening dress cut tight to her envious figure. Valerie was torn between giving her the same shocked glance she saw on a number of dowagers’ faces and admiring her with the wide-eyed amazement of the chaps across the way. Valerie brushed her hands over the fitted bodice of her dress, wishing it were a touch more daring. What she wouldn’t give for a little more sophistication and little less country mouse.
Aunt Anne whispered their names to the butler, who announced them to the hostess.
“Mrs. Chamberlain, it’s a pleasure to have you here.” Lady Dunsford beamed and Valerie could practically see her writing in her memoirs about the Premier’s wife honoring her party.
She wasn’t as charmed by Valerie, her smile stiffening about the corners as she greeted her. “Miss de Vere Cole. I believe my husband knew your father.”
“Did he?” This could very well end with a great deal of finger-pointing and a footman escorting her out. She hoped Aunt Anne’s presence would keep the woman in check, but after what she’d seen with Vivien she doubted it.
“I was involved in Irish politics when your father was living there,” the slender Lord Dunsford harrumphed from under his bushy mustache. “I assisted in the selling of his Irish assets in Midleton after his divorce.”
“You mean when he went broke after the divorce,” Lady Dunsford was kind enough to clarify for Valerie and everyone nearby.
The second you walk into a ballroom, those society biddies will sniff you out for the poor country cousin you are. Valerie took a deep breath, her girdle tight under her dress, struggling to maintain her composure in the face of their insults. She’d have the hide of an elephant by the end of the Season. “Thank you, Lord Dunsford, for helping my father. I’m sure he appreciated it.”
Lord Dunsford arched one eyebrow in doubt but it was Aunt Anne who spoke first, all manners and polish in the face of vulgarity. “Congratulations to you both, and to you, Miss Dunsford.”
“Thank you. It’s a pleasure to have you here, and you as well, Miss de Vere Cole.” Guinevere had better manners than her mother, but before she could say more, Lady Dunsford flapped a silencing hand, flashing an overly wide smile when Valerie and Aunt Anne noticed.
Aunt Anne drew Valerie away but not before they heard Lady Dunsford warn her daughter, “She may be the Prime Minister’s niece, but there are better, more lucrative friends you can make.”
“Ignore her. A social climber isn’t worth the bother,” Aunt Anne advised.
“How many others are saying the same thing about me out of my hearing?” The quiet of the last week had lulled her into a sense of peace. This had broken that bubble.
“I’m sure there’s a few, especially those not enamored with Neville. It happens to everyone and you have to learn to let the comments roll off your back. Come along, your friends and dance partners are waiting.”
My friends. None of their mothers or aunts had warned them off of Valerie. Still, Lady Dunsford’s comment smarted as she and Aunt Anne entered the ballroom. She wasn’t looking to be proclaimed Debutante of the Year, but she could do without another round of unwarranted criticism or dredged-up memories of Father.
Despite the Spanish colors and decorations in the ballroom, the very American “Stairway to the Stars” put Jack Harris’s orchestra’s horn section on display. They played at the far end of the room surrounding a large piano and Mr. Harris’s smooth voice carried over the swish of taffeta and silk gowns. Dinah waved to Valerie before her stiff-legged partner turned her around with more of a shuffling motion than a dance step.
Mr. R. M. Chaplin approached when they settled on the outskirts of the dance floor. “Miss de Vere Cole, might I have a dance with you?”
“Of course.” She handed Mr. Chaplin her dance card, thankful to have at least one line filled in. Every gentleman at the dinner party beforehand had been well over sixty and rubbish for partners. With this dance already under way, Mr. Chaplin signed up for a dance, then handed the card and pencil back to her, bowed, and left. Valerie glanced at his name, hoping he might have written out what R.M. stood for, but no luck. She’d have to ask and give him something besides horses to talk about for a few stanzas.
Three more young men approached Valerie to add their names to her card. They were taken for the next few dances but willingly signed up for later ones, leaving a number of blank spaces between their names and Mr. Chaplin’s. Hopefully, at least one of Their Excellencies would be free during those numbers to stand and chat with her. She’d thought the cards silly when Aunt Anne had tied one to her wrist before Miss Furneaux’s ball. She was glad for them now. It made the monumental task of remembering names much easier, except for Lord Fulton, or was it Fultmore? Valerie couldn’t tell from his handwriting. “I’m going to learn a great deal about horses, cricket, and rowing by the end of the Season.”
“An amusing way to round out one’s education.”
“Isn�
�t it just?”
The song ended and the dancers shifted on and off the dance floor.
“Valerie, at last.” Dinah grabbed her arm and read the card. “Good, you have time to chat before the next number.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Aunt Anne made for one of the empty gilt chairs along the edge of the room where the chaperone mothers, aunts, and cousins sat chatting or engrossed in knitting. One or two of the grandmothers dozed, their diamond necklaces rising and falling with the steady movement of their chests. The few fathers braving the ballroom were surrounded by a horde of mothers who giggled more than a debutante dancing with her favorite delight.
“Where are Their Excellencies?” Valerie asked.
“All taken for the next dance. I begged off mine. I’m simply knackered. I want to introduce you to someone.” She pulled Valerie through the crowd and up to a group of gentlemen near one of the open windows. “Elm.”
“Shhh, we’re waiting for Lord Herbert’s monocle to fall off.” The tall chap with light blond hair and a square jaw pointed across the room at a rotund and balding man chatting with a girl half his age. “He’s had it on for the last hour and he hasn’t lost it yet.”
“Wait a moment,” one of the men urged.
Lord Herbert threw back his head and laughed at something his companion said and the monocle slipped off his cheek, sending the Baron and the young woman scurrying to the floor to retrieve it.
The gentlemen groaned or clapped one another on the back. “That’s five quid you owe me, Elm.”
“Here you are, David.” Elm slid a five-pound note out of the slender billfold tucked inside his evening jacket, pulling it back before David could take it. “Another fiver says he goes the next three hours without losing it.”
“You’re on.”
“If you’re done having a flutter on a blind old baron, I have someone for you to meet.” Dinah stepped in the middle of the gentlemen, pulling Valerie in with her. “Miss Valerie de Vere Cole, may I introduce the Honorable David Ormsby-Gore, Katherine’s brother?”
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” the dark-blond-haired chap said in the same mumbling accent as his sister’s. He had a sharp nose and his sister’s long and rounded chin.
“These two rabble-rousers are my cousins, the Honorable Mr. Jakie Astor and the Honorable Mr. Michael Astor.”
“I say, you’re Mr. Chamberlain’s niece,” Michael said.
“The debutante in Downing Street.” Jakie flashed a broad smile that resembled his brother’s. The two of them were close in looks and height with the same dusty brown hair and their mother’s slanting nose that pointed decidedly downward. The only notable difference between them was the round scar-like indent on Jakie’s forehead above his right eye. “Isn’t that what the Sketch called you?”
“It is.” She didn’t mention what it’d labeled him, especially after the wild car accident that’d left him with that unfortunate scar. It’d been in all the papers that winter.
“The winner of the wager is Lord Elmswood.” Dinah turned Valerie to face the square-jawed blond with hooded eyes above strong cheekbones who studied her so intensely, it made her cheeks burn with a blush.
“Call me Elm. Everyone else does, even if I detest it.” He winked at her. How he could spare her a look when Guinevere moved through the room with more wiggle than considered proper for a debutante, she didn’t know.
“Richard, meet the Premier’s niece.” Elm grabbed his friend by the arm and pulled him over. “The Honorable Dr. Richard Cranston, son of Lord Lansdown.”
“A pleasure.” The dark-haired man, nearly as tall as Elm but with a broader chest and fuller shoulders, bowed to Valerie, then straightened. “We were just discussing your uncle.”
“In favorable terms, I hope.”
Dr. Cranston flashed a lopsided grin. “Mostly.”
“Then I’ll have to make it entirely.” She glanced at her dance card.
“I think you must.” Dr. Cranston, taking her none-too-subtle hint, slid a pen from his coat pocket and reached for the card, but Elm took her hand before he could get it.
“Precedent and all that, old chap.” Elm removed the small pencil from its elastic holder on the side and wrote his name, his fingers curling around hers. His lithe chest gave him a grace that his height might have stolen if he’d been gangly and clumsy, but he wasn’t. He was all smooth motions and charm. “Here you are.”
He passed Valerie’s hand to Dr. Cranston. The doctor’s grip was firm where Elm’s had been more subtle. He glanced up at her from time to time while he wrote, his brown eyes as startling in their darkness as Elm’s had been in their blue intensity.
Two gentlemen flirting with her in one night. This was a first.
“What about us?” Jakie said.
“We’re the sons of a viscount, after all,” Michael said, completing his brother’s thought.
“The younger ones,” Dinah reminded with a smirk. “They’re hardly worth anything.”
Dr. Cranston paused in writing his name on Valerie’s dance card and she inwardly cringed. Some debutantes were renowned for refusing to dance with any chap without a title or the possibility of one. Dinah rarely turned down a gentleman but clearly she didn’t think too highly of the aristocratic equivalent of leftovers.
“Don’t be formal with them, Michael and Jakie will do,” Dinah insisted when Dr. Cranston passed her hand to the younger Astor.
“How presumptuous of you, dear cousin,” Jakie playfully scolded as he added his name to Valerie’s card for a later dance, leaving the one after Dr. Cranston’s open as he offered her hand to his brother.
“Ah, let her alone. You know we hate all that stuffy business anyway.” Michael claimed the dance after his brother’s instead of filling the gap between Dr. Cranston and Jakie. “What’s it like to be in the middle of things in Number Ten?”
“It must be exciting,” Jackie pressed as Michael released her hand.
Valerie rubbed the feeling back into her fingers. “It’d be more exciting if they let me into the Cabinet Room, but they don’t.”
“Good, the government is no place for a woman,” Elm drawled.
Valerie exchanged a look with Dinah, each waiting for the other to berate him for his comment, but neither of them said anything. She shouldn’t be so shy, but after Lady Dunsford’s snub, she’d didn’t relish another.
“Better not let Mummy hear you say so,” Jakie chided for them.
“She’ll take you to task for sure,” Michael added, but Elm shrugged, unruffled by the rebuke.
“It’s all well and good for old married types, but the rest hardly need to bother.”
“I imagine politics is far duller than we’d like to believe anyway,” Dr. Cranston said, making the peace.
“I’ll say.” Jakie rolled his eyes. “Especially when Mum is going on about it but we can’t help it . . .”
“. . . we’re fascinated,” Michael finished. “Tell us what your uncle is going to do about Germany. Mum either doesn’t know or won’t say.”
“I don’t want to be hanged for revealing state secrets.” Miss Holmes had told her this morning about Uncle Neville’s attempts to bring Britain, France, Russia, and Poland together in a pledge of unity against Germany but she wasn’t certain how much of that she could discuss in public.
“Stop trying to worm state secrets out of Miss de Vere Cole,” Dr. Cranston warned in a voice as smooth as the circle of dancers moving in the center of the room. “Her neck is too pretty to risk the noose.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
The song came to an end, igniting a massive shift of people on and off the dance floor. Mr. R. M. Chaplin appeared beside Valerie.
“I believe this is our dance.” He held out his arm, his wide smile making his small chin sink deeper into his neck.
Valerie was about to take his arm, regretting leaving Dinah’s cousins and friends so soon, when Elm stepped in between her and Mr. Chaplin
. “Be a good sport and give me this one. You can have another.”
Mr. Chaplin’s smile dropped and he lowered her arm. “Of course, Lord Elmswood.”
Valerie should insist on dancing with him now but she didn’t, too shocked and flattered by Elm cutting in to do more than offer Mr. Chaplin an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chaplin. Dr. Cranston is next on my list but the dance after his is open and it’d be smashing to partner with you for it.”
Mr. Chaplin’s smile returned but it wasn’t quite as wide as before. “All right. Until then.” He left to ask a young woman without a partner to dance. Valerie was glad the girl accepted him. He might be dull but he was awfully nice and she knew what it was to be rejected.
“That wasn’t very sporting,” she dared with Elm, needing to say something. It was the most she could muster with his sturdy arm beneath her palm as he led her out onto the dance floor, whirling her around to face him, one hand on hers, the other solid against her back.
“It was dreadful of me to pull rank like that but I couldn’t bear to let our conversation end.”
“It wasn’t much of a conversation.”
“Only because there wasn’t enough of it.” He drew her a little closer, swaying them back and forth with fluid grace.
“If you hope to get any state secrets out of me, you’ll fail.” But she wouldn’t mind him trying.
“I’m not interested in state secrets but whether or not there’ll be war. Some papers say there won’t be but Lord Beaverbrook and his rag are certain of it. Are they right?”
My, he’s a good dancer. He swung her about, the skirt of her gown swishing back and forth between their legs. With anyone else leading her she would’ve looked like a swaying curtain, but with him it was all elegance and sophistication. They were cutting quite the figure, and more than one head turned to admire them. “I can’t say, but Uncle Neville is doing all he can to make sure there isn’t.”
“While Herr Hitler is doing all he can to make sure there is.” He sighed as if he believed war was inevitable. Did all the chaps think so? If they did, they were certainly enjoying themselves in the midst of a crisis. Everyone around them smiled and laughed except for Vivien, who scowled at Valerie over the very short shoulder of her partner. Valerie jutted out her chin, pretending not to care while silently gloating. She was dancing with the son of a marquess while Vivien was with a mere knight’s son. Around the room, the mothers continued to chat and knit while some sagged in their chairs, anxiously waiting for the band to play “God Save the King” so they could go home and crawl into bed. Even the few fathers weren’t any more grave-faced than normal, enjoying hearty laughs along with their champagne. Everyone carried on as if things were as they’d always been and would continue to be. No one behaved as if bombs were about to fall through the arched ceiling.
The Last Debutantes Page 9